Motherboard won't boot with Antec smartpower 2

When I switch on the power, the CPU fan starts up but it keeps pulsing: going up to full speed then dropping back again. There are no beeps, but the speaker constantly emits ticking sounds about 2 times a second. The system doesn't boot at all.

To try to isolate the problem I've removed all peripherals and the graphics card.

I've used another PSU (450W Tagan) to run up the motherboard/processor without any problems.

I've also used the Antec PSU to run up an older AMD motherboard/processor.

I'm stuck. The only thing I can think of is that the PSU isn't powerful enough to run up the motherboard and processor I'm trying to use. But that seems surprising since I thought the Antec Truepower II was quite a high quality PSU.

It's not uncommon for PSU's equipped with Fuhjyyu caps to damage a motherboard beyond repair.
- If you look hard enough you'll find a few reports of Fuhjyyu equipped PSUs causing the system [and sometimes the house] to catch fire.

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Something else to check is if the (usually) White wire is missing from the Smart Power and is there one the Tagan.
With the locking clip facing up, and starting from the left, it should be something like:
orange - blue - black- green - black - black - black - white (or empty) - rest of the wires

Some mobos are picky about the White wire being there, or they will not boot.

-5 Volts DC is only used by motherboards with ISA slots .... More correctly an ISA BUS....
... very few early P4 boards had an internal ISA BUS [the BUS but no ISA Slots] to support using cheap 16-bit ISA based chips [for sound and IDE controllers as I recall] that were soldered directly onto the motherboard.
I'm 90% sure MSI was the only one that cheaped out by using obsolete chips that way.

Gigabyte GA-K8NXP-9 doesn't use -5 Volts DC.
The chipset is an NVIDIA nForce4 which does not support an ISA BUS.
.

check if you did not short the mobo on the mounting standoffs - each one should correspond to a hole !

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DawkinsAuthor Commented: 2010-01-04

Thanks for the comments.

The motherboard isn't damaged because I can still boot it using a different PSU. This also rules out a short somewhere The PSU isnt damaged either because it will boot a different (ASUS) motherboard with a lower speed CPU.

I'm going to try putting the CPU I'm trying to use into the ASUS motherboard. Maybe there is some strange compatability problem between the gigabyte motherboard and the Antec PSU.

The biggest difference between the Tagan and the Antec is the +12v rail(s), which is used to start up the cpu. The Tagan seems to have a single high current rail, while the Antec splits it into two lower curent ones. Another high-quality manufacturer, PC Power & Cooling, also follows this practice of a high current single rail. This Tagan power supply may have a switch to allow combining or splitting the +12v rails.

[Previous photo.]
You Smartpower II uses the same +5vsb as these other models.
- When the +5vsb caps finally 'go' they often take out the motherboard's chipset.
- The one in the photo did in fact literally blow a small hole in the motherboard's chipset.

The next two photos are of the final output filter caps.
The Fuhjyyu's in the Antec TP2-550EPS12V bloated and leaked in the box on the self.
[I know this for a fact. I'm the one that broke the factory seal on the box.]

Well, I finally solved the problem: for some reason the Antec PSU and Gigabyte motherboard wouldn't work together. I switched the Gigabyte motherboard for an Asus one and reinstalled the CPU on that motherboard and it all worked without problems.

I accept what you're saying about the Antec's capacitors, but the gigabyte motherboard hasn't been damaged by the Antec PSU at all - it still boots with the Tagan.

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